The Mora

Chapter 4

two

By the time Kim Reed realized she was getting used to losing people, it was too late for her to do much about it, except perhaps find herself a therapist.

Nobody dead, of course—no one could possibly become truly accustomed to death. But they were all leaving, one by one, drifting out of her life as she drifted out of theirs. A father she hadn’t seen in over a decade, an aunt dying of Alzheimer’s in a nursing home, a mother and grandfather who were abroad more often than not, best friends who had lives of their own and couldn’t wait around for her family to decide what to do with her. And one almost-friend, one she only knew for a matter of days, but whom she would always carry with her—kidnapped by a psychotic vampire. Lenny. She had spent six years psychically bound to him and was still recovering from the day something shattered him, something she couldn’t save him from. Six years looking for a way to rescue him, waiting for some opportunity to come along, only to lose him. Thinking about it still made her furious. But in a way, it was also freeing. Six years was only a flash in the life of a wizard, but it was still a damn long time to spend without closure. It was easier to know at last that she had failed than it had been to look forward to striving forever. At least he was no longer in pain.

Losing people had become habit. It hurt, but she knew how to take it. She knew how to keep going until it dulled and receded. It would get better—had to, because wizards live a long time, and you lose a lot of friends in half a millennium.

Getting someone back was a surprise.

Out the rear-facing window, she watched a dark shape creep across the park and disappear into the shadows of the building. Probably just a hobo, but there were things that did not like the Reed family, and so Kim double-checked the wards she’d set around the apartment and made sure that her pistol was in easy reach, right at the very top of her desk drawer. On impulse, she reached down to tug uselessly at the bronze band encircling her right ankle. It didn’t budge. It never did. C’est la vie.

The shadow did not appear again, and after a while, Kim moved from the desk to the couch, keeping her pistol nearby, and flicked the television on. It was late, and she was tired, and no one can be cautious every moment of every day. She was almost drifting off when there came three soft taps at the window.

Four stories up.

Kim shot to her feet, pistol finding its way into her hand. She had experience with things that could scale walls, almost none of it good. The cluster of tiny religious medals felt heavy at her throat; her charm bracelet with its string of jingling milagros lay on her desk, weighing down a sheaf of papers, useless to her for the moment.

But the eyes glowing outside the window were less menacing than amused. They were also familiar, though for a moment, Kim could not place them. The face, that of an extremely old man, gaunt and creased, was not one she thought she knew. Much of it was concealed by a dense, meticulously trimmed salt-and-pepper beard and large, wire-rimmed glasses that made it hard to see any more of the eyes than their inhuman shine.

She did not know the face, but she knew the glasses; for all the strange beings she had met, only one creature of the night had vision problems.

“Holy beans! Doctor Leland?”

The man clinging forty feet above the ground lifted an eyebrow. “May I come in?” he mouthed.

It took a moment of deliberation. “Um… Well… Provided you’re not looking to murder me or anything…” She doubted he was; Leland had always been strangely laidback for an undead bloodsucker, but it was best not to take chances. “On that condition, yeah, sure. Hang on a sec.” She laid her gun on the coffee table and clambered back up on the couch to fumble with the window latch. Getting the screen out and back in would be a hassle, but she could hardly leave him hanging there.

But Leland did not wait patiently. As Kim watched, his body began to fade and dissolve into thin, luminous white mist, like floating dust motes catching the light. In a matter of moments, he was entirely gone. The cloud swirled around the window, seeking a weak point, and finally began to trickle in between the panes, where the seal apparently was not airtight. It pooled in the middle of the room and condensed again, gaining solidity until it was a man once more.

He inhaled once, curiously, polished his spectacles on a cloth whipped from his pocket, and moved at once to press his ear to the front door.

Kim blinked. “I never knew you could do that.” She took in his manner, the way his eyes sought every possible point of entry, and frowned. “Is someone after you?”

“It never came up, did it? No, not right at this moment. I think I’ve lost him, but he’s always managed to catch up with me before. At least I probably have some time.”

Kim opened her mouth to voice some of the innumerable questions that statement suggested, but he held out one long, thin hand to silence her.

“I am glad it is you here,” he continued, “and not one of your relatives. That makes this much easier. I don’t think I could have borne saying such a thing to your grandfather.” He looked searchingly at the door, as though seeking an alternative. None presented itself.

“Miss Reed, under chapter six, section six, paragraph eighteen of the Philadelphia Accords of nineteen twenty-eight, this is my formal request for asylum.”

Kim gaped as he drew a folded stack of papers from his coat pocket and laid them on her table.

“I’ve taken the liberty of drafting the necessary contract—open to revision, of course—to which I voluntarily submit myself to be bound.”

He watched her expectantly, but she could think of nothing to say.

“Did something happen?” she managed, then immediately kicked herself for asking a stupid question. The man’s lips thinned. Daniel Leland did not tolerate stupid questions; she should have remembered that. “I mean, what happened? I can’t accept until I know why you’re in trouble. If it was indiscretion…”

“You know me, Miss Reed. Do you believe me capable of indiscretion?”

“I knew you twelve years ago. Vampires may not change much, but that’s still a long time for anything to happen.”

He flinched at the v-word and glanced at the door as though afraid someone might have heard. She should have remembered that, too.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Sorry. Look, sit down. Do you want coffee? I can make coffee.”

He sat cautiously, arthritis crackling in his joints. That sound filled Kim with more questions, but she kept them bottled; he was a friend—acquaintance—in need, not a research subject. She set up the coffee maker and left it to percolate, then took her place on the other end of the couch.

Leland had leaned forward, cradling his forehead in his hands, glasses pushed up into his snowy hair. He looked terrible, she realized, and not only because she was used to him appearing a good thirty years younger than he did at the moment. He looked exhausted, face sunken, papery white skin sliding loosely across his bones. As a teenager, she had entertained a weird, contrary crush on the man next door. Undead or not, he was brilliant and dignified, qualities Kimberly Reed found infinitely more attractive than the latest floppy-haired, baggy-trousered boy band. She had never quite decided whether she actually found him handsome, but he was quick and sharp, with an aura of power and an oddly disarming smile. That man was gone, lost in that strange, preternatural senescence. He wasn’t even merely old, she realized; he was ghastly. Had he been human, Kim would have said that the man in front of her was dying.

She waited, and the silence grew until the coffee maker beeped. She retrieved two mugs and filled them, took one for herself and placed the other on the table, within the old man’s reach. Still, he said nothing. She began to wonder whether he might have been exhausted enough to fall asleep.

“You’re going to have to talk to me,” she told him quietly; it was always a bad idea to startle a vampire. “I can’t do anything until I know what’s going on. And you can bet Grandpa is going to have even more questions than I do.”

For a moment, she thought he might not have heard her, but he slowly lowered his hands and replaced his glasses on the bridge of his hawkish nose.

“It would be much easier to explain if I had any idea, myself, but I haven’t.” He cast a weary look in Kim’s direction, gauging her disbelief, and only continued when he saw that she was not gearing up to challenge him. “I’ve obviously done something to irritate somebody, but I don’t know what it is. They said at first that they were sent by the one who made me what I am, but that has to be a lie. She would be pleased to dominate me, I know, but I do not believe she has any interest in my destruction. Not her, then. But they have pursued me for years, and that kind of tenacity would seem to implicate one of the Houses, though I don’t know which one, and I know of no transgression that would have pitted any of them so fiercely against me.” He paused, as though considering an addition, then shook his head. “I can tell you no more until I know more, myself. I am persecuted, for no good reason I can see. One of the two who had pursued me is dead, but I believe the other survives, and I am tired of running. Tired enough to submit myself to wizards.”

He picked up the coffee mug and clasped his long hands around it, seeking warmth. It was a gesture Kim found familiar. “The contract can only be conditional, naturally. As the information changes, no doubt your response must change as well. But right now, with only what I have been able to tell you… Will you help me?”

Kim bit her lip. “I can get the ball rolling,” she said, “but that’s about it. I’m actually still kind of in trouble for an incident a few years ago.”

She scooted the leg of her jeans up to show him the bronze band around her ankle. He lifted an eyebrow, uncomprehending.

“It’s a shackle,” she explained. “I am extremely limited right now, magically speaking. And actually, the problem was mainly to do with me being a little too friendly with, ah, the living impaired, so it’s extremely unlikely I’ll be allowed to have anything to do with your case.”

His gaze moved to the two spots of shiny scar tissue below her jaw. “Friendly?” His tone was tight with disapproval.

An explanation was already at the tip of Kim’s tongue when she suddenly realized that she didn’t owe him one. “Absolutely none of your business.”

At least he had the grace to color faintly and clear his throat. “My coming here won’t get you in more trouble, I hope,” he tried, deftly abandoning the sidetrack.

“Nah. You haven’t chewed on me, and I’ve never been on your payroll, so it should be fine. But I do actually have a job and stuff, so I’m going to shoot off an email to the homestead and hit the sack. They’ll probably send someone to come get you in the morning. Are you okay on the couch?”

He looked extremely uncomfortable, which she took as a good sign that there would be no shenanigans in the night. He was Victorian, she reminded herself, and the undead sometimes tended to get stuck in the past. The nervous twist of his mouth was a humorous counterpoint to the popular image of creeping vampires invading young ladies’ boudoirs.

He nodded. “Thank you, I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. G’night, then.”

So she left him. She slid into pajamas and snapped open her laptop to send that email—to her aunt rather than her mother or grandfather, because neither of the latter were likely to be in the country. Then, on impulse, she dug the electric blanket out of the bottom of her closet and took it out to her guest. He took it with murmured thanks, too busy staring out the window to look at her. He looked terrible, gray and tired, lips almost imperceptibly distended against extended eyeteeth, so she left him alone and crept silently back toward her room.

But his voice stopped her.

“Miss Reed, are defensive magicks among those remaining to you?”

A tiny twinge of suspicion tightened her shoulders, but he did not seem to notice.

“Of course,” she lied, and was startled to hear a shaky breath escape him.

“Good. Good, thank God. I don’t think I could have borne to lose another.”

*

Kim sat bolt upright at five o’clock on the dot, an hour and a half before her alarm was set to ring, with no idea what had woken her. She listened hard but heard nothing. There was no sound, no movement. But something had changed.

She groped for her pistol, only to remember that she had left it on the table by the couch. Stupid. If something had gotten in… Nothing had, though. The wards around the apartment would have let her know. There was nothing in the apartment that had not been there when she went to bed. That left Daniel Leland. Something had happened to him. Or he had done something. She adjusted the cluster of religious medals at her throat and fumbled across the surface of her bedside table until her fingers closed around the rattling beads of her rosary, sharp edges of the little pewter crucifix digging into her palm.

She held still a moment longer, trying to catch any sound that might tell her where her guest was. If he were really out to hurt her, he could have just gone all foggy again and drifted in under her closed door; she knew that only dawn could stop a vampire from changing shapes, and the sun was still far below the horizon. But then again, weakness could probably stop them, too, and he had been plainly exhausted. If he had lost control, he might be out in the living room, waiting for her to emerge… No, any vampire out of his mind with thirst would have just broken her door down. But if not that, then…

Kim rolled out of bed, gnawing her lip in silent frustration. This is what I get for being a skeeter-lover, she berated herself. Unwanted houseguests, ridiculously early mornings, and occasional mortal peril.

She padded to the door and cracked it open and immediately knew what had woken her. The living room smelled overpoweringly of orangey furniture polish, mingled with faint notes of bleach. It stung a little. She sniffled and blinked back tears, wiping the fumes out of her watering eyes with her pajama sleeve. I have got to be dreaming. She pushed through the door and stepped out into the excessively sanitary miasma. Every surface shone, from the upholstery tacks to the television screen, every square inch purged of dust. Even the carpet was spotless, though Kim could have sworn she had heard no vacuum cleaner in the night. The top of her normally paper-strewn desk was bare. Her jaw clenched.

The culprit crouched on the floor in the kitchen, his head and shoulders disappearing into the oven, scrubbing furiously beneath an unnatural shroud of silence. Though his thin back knotted with the vehemence of his every movement, not a sound escaped.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kim asked as levelly as she could.

The man emerged, blinking, from the oven, without even the decency to look sheepish.

“I apologize,” he said unapologetically, depositing his sponge on the stovetop and rolling his sleeves back down. “I wasn’t able to sleep.”

“So you went on a cleaning spree? What the heck!”

He shrugged. “It seemed less objectionable than some of the alternatives that had occurred to me.” She noticed that a capillary had burst in his left eye, staining half the sclera brilliant scarlet. “I find comfort in order.”

Kim brushed past him and swept the sponge into the sink. Last night’s coffee cups were gone, too. “I find comfort in people not going through my stuff, thanks. Don’t ever touch my papers. And just so you know, ‘lesser of two evils’ is never an excuse. I can’t believe you went through my stuff.”

He failed to look appropriately chastised. “I had hoped you might notice instead that I haven’t murdered any of your neighbors,” he commented mildly. “Speaking of, I’m afraid I have a small problem that grows ever more urgent. You know the area better than I, so I’d wondered if you might point me in the direction of a socially acceptable solution?”

Kim resisted the urge to snap at him. He wasn’t the least bit contrite, but his long fingers plucked convulsively at the weave of his trousers. Maybe cleaning really was his coping mechanism. She huffed. “I don’t do a lot of this kind of entertaining,” she told him. Good grief, he looked awful. It was sort of amazing that he hadn’t turned on her, yet. “Just go do what you do, and… don’t tell me about it.” She grimaced, but what else could she do? Short of killing him first, there was no possible way to prevent him from killing someone else, and she preferred that it not be her.

His hands froze for a moment in his surprise. “Well… then I suppose I shall take advantage of your building’s offerings, after all.”

“Weren’t you just bragging about not killing my neighbors?”

“I didn’t mean to imply that there was a real danger of that happening. I only assumed that your immediate neighborhood would be off-limits.”

“Look, if you’re trying to get me to give you spoken permission to kill people, I’m not going to. Just because I know I can’t stop you doesn’t mean I’m good with it.”

“Easy, now. I’m only trying to ascertain what you consider acceptable boundaries. I come to you as a supplicant, Miss Reed; I can’t afford to alienate you.”

She let out a slow breath and shrugged, and he backed out of the kitchen and disappeared. If he got back after sunrise, Kim decided, she might let him in. Maybe. Or maybe she’d let him stew out in the hall for a while. Skeeters could be such idiots, even the clever ones.

She put away the squirt bottle of surface cleaner and the bleach. She’d have to leave the window open for a while to get rid of the smell. Comfort from order, my foot. He was probably lying through his teeth about the whole thing and was just using her credulity as a chance to dig up dirt on some wizards. Thankfully, there was nothing particularly sensitive among her papers—which she found neatly alphabetized in her file cabinet.

Except for one. There was a file missing under ‘B,’ one she hadn’t taken out in quite a while. It was thick, and the space it left empty was conspicuous between the other folders. Unfortunately, it was also one she could imagine a vampire might find offensive. Was that where he had actually gone? Maybe he had absconded with her file and wasn’t coming back. But then, why stick around long enough for her to discover it missing?

She left the cabinet drawers wide open and moved to the living room to assess the extent of her apartment’s newfound cleanliness. The furniture had been moved around so that everything was arranged at right angles to everything else. At least Daniel Leland’s coat was still draped over the back of the chair. Not proof, but at least good evidence that he intended to come back. She went to pick up her pistol from the end table, and when she turned around, she spied the missing file in the seat of the chair. Nothing stolen, then. At least there was that.

Partly out of caution, and partly out of pettiness, she took advantage of the momentary solitude and rifled through the pockets of his abandoned coat, but there was nothing particularly interesting. A neat fold of bills ranging from tens to hundreds, a glasses case, two pairs of disposable contact lenses, a black enamel rosary with the crucifix removed, a pocket knife with its blade sharpened down to a mere sliver, three nine-millimeter bullets, and a stick of lip balm. A closer investigation led her to a hidden pocket containing two passports, one belonging to Daniel Tolliver and one to James Macready, both with Daniel Leland’s face, though Tolliver was a Briton and Macready was Australian.

She wondered whether he could actually pull off an Australian accent, or if he just relied on Americans not being able to tell one way or the other. The thought made her smile.

She shoved everything back into the pockets from which it had come and left it alone.

When she snapped open her laptop, there was a reply waiting for her. She read it over quickly, then again slowly, just to make sure. A derisive snort escaped her.

“Really?” she muttered. “This is really getting old, guys.”

But there was nothing she could do about it, so by the time Daniel Leland returned, she was waiting with a duffel bag packed.

He eyed her curiously.

“We’re going on a road trip,” she told him. “I guess I’ll explain on the way.”